Suddenly collapsing buildings and densely packed vehicles hemmed them in, cutting off their retreat. Glancing about desperately for the nearest escape route, Lombard spied a narrow alley that ran between two endangered skyscrapers.
“I see a way out!” he hollered.
Perry stopped to look around. Where was Jenny? In the clamor and confusion, he’d lost track of the young intern. He called out for her.
“Jenny!”
A weak, muffled voice responded.
“…here…”
Her battered hand reached out from beneath a pile of rubble. Part of the building’s façade had apparently broken loose and buried the girl. Perry dashed to her side and frantically began clearing away the heavy slabs of masonry. Adrenaline gave him the strength to uncover her face, which was bruised and bleeding. Sheer terror contorted her features. Tears streaked the dust coating her cheeks.
“I’m stuck!” she exclaimed. “I can’t get free!”
Perry tried to excavate her, but some of the slabs were too big for just one man to lift. His desperate eyes searched for Lombard, whom he spotted several feet away, seemingly paralyzed with fear. The reporter’s petrified gaze darted back and forth between the trapped intern and the towering gravity column advancing implacably toward them.
The crushing beam was less than twenty yards away now, and roaring loudly enough to rattle Perry’s teeth. Unless they moved quickly, Jenny would be pulped in a matter of moments. They all would be.
“Lombard!” Perry shouted over the din. “Help me!”
The jock wavered, unable to tear his gaze away from the oncoming column. He looked like he was on the verge of abandoning them.
“LOMBARD! Get your ass over here!”
Perry’s sharp tone jolted the man into action. Finding a core of bravery that probably surprised even him, the reporter raced over to assist Perry. Together, they started heaving massive chunks of stonework aside, slowly uncovering her. She struggled weakly to liberate herself.
“Don’t leave me,” she pleaded. “Please.”
But Perry wasn’t going anywhere. He glanced briefly over his shoulder, to see the looming column creeping relentlessly toward them. He lifted another heavy slab, but while they were making progress, it wasn’t fast enough. There was no way they could dig her out before the gravity column turned them into greasy smears on the pavement.
Lombard knew the score as well. He glanced sheepishly at Perry, clearly wanting to run, but Perry’s stoic gaze shamed him into staying. The jock nodded and took hold of Jenny’s hand, comforting her in the face of annihilation.
At that moment Perry was proud of the man, who had proved that nobody had braver reporters than the Daily Planet.
We’re in this together, he thought. To the last deadline.
“Oh, God,” Jenny murmured, and she seemed to be going into shock. “Oh God…”
“It’s okay!” he assured her. “We’re going to get you out of here.” Reporting the truth was Perry’s business, but he figured he could be forgiven one little white lie at the end.
Foot by foot, inch by inch, the gravity column crept toward them. It passed over an abandoned food cart, crushing it like a hydraulic press. Lombard cringed, but stayed by Jenny’s side. He closed his eyes, though, probably not wanting to be an eyewitness to his own demise.
Perry kept his eyes wide open.
The gravity beam pressed Superman to the Earth. Blinding light and a deafening rumble accompanied the extreme pressure weighing him down. Solid bedrock cracked beneath his prone body. Compressed matter swirled around him.
It felt as if a giant was stepping on him, grinding him beneath its heel, even as the World Engine continued to spew its toxic gases into the air. Gravity waves penetrated the Earth, increasing the planet’s mass. Soon the entire world would be fit only for people who didn’t belong there.
No, Superman thought, I can’t let this machine win.
He remembered all the people who were depending on him, all the souls he’d touched and been touched by in his travels—his mom, Lois, Pete, Lana, Captain Heraldson and the crew of the Debbie Sue, the roughnecks on that oil rig, Chrissy the waitress, Colonel Hardy, Father Leone…
And he remembered those who had sacrificed everything to give him the chance to make a difference: Jor-El, Lara Lor-Van, and Jonathan Kent. He couldn’t let them down, not with seven billion human lives depending on him.
Billions of years of terrestrial evolution, millennia of human civilization and progress, generations of men and women fighting to make a better life for themselves and their prosperity, stood to be wiped way unless he came through now—and became the hero his fathers and mothers had dreamed he could be.
“You just have to decide what kind of man you want to grow up to be, Clark. Because whoever that man is… he’s going to change the world.”
Or save it.
He raised his face from the gravel. Incredibly, impossibly, he staggered to his feet. The crushing force of the column made just standing upright a Herculean feat, but that wasn’t good enough. He lifted off from the flattened island, rising slowly against the pressure, then gaining speed.
The gravity deformed his face, making his skin ripple, as he stared up into the infernal heart of the World Engine. His pupils glowed red.
Crimson energy shot from his eyes, meeting the gravity beam head on. For a moment the two forces appeared evenly matched. Then, screaming from the strain, Superman broke the stalemate and drove himself upward into the belly of the World Engine. Turning his own indestructible body into a weapon, the Man of Steel burst through the crown of machine and shot into the churning alien clouds.
Suddenly brain-dead, the World Engine tottered upon its monstrous legs. Its magnetic tendrils went limp. Flames erupted from its perforated head. Unsteady legs gave out as the entire structure collapsed in on itself, crashing down onto what was left of the volcanic island, which suddenly resembled Krakotoa.
The blast from the Engine’s demise knocked Superman from the sky.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
After a few minutes Lombard opened his eyes, and the expression on his face showed that he hadn’t expected to be alive.
Perry knew how he felt. Cradling Jenny’s head, he watched in surprise as the encroaching column ground to a halt. Gravity waves rebounded back toward the hovering starship. The gigantic column, which was looming like Niagara Falls over their heads, evaporated into the ether. The debris ring orbiting Zod’s spaceship fell apart. Perry ducked his head, shielding Jenny with his body, as powdered stone and glass fell like rain.
He shared a baffled look with Lombard. What on earth had just happened?
Not that he was complaining.
Sirens keened aboard the Black Zero. Faora stumbled as the bridge shook beneath her feet. Her fierce eyes demanded an explanation from Jax-Ur, who was viewing a holographic display with open alarm.
“The World Engine’s stopped transmitting!” he cried out.
Faora knew what that meant. With its link to the Engine broken, the gravity column came apart, creating an energy discharge that rocked the ship. The bridge crew scrambled to stabilize them, even as she tried to make sense of the failure.
“How?” she asked urgently.
Jax-Ur knew better than to keep her waiting.